MILLY DOWLER'S mother did not sleep for three nights after she learned that a private detective working for the News of the World hacked her daughter's phone, the Leveson Inquiry heard today.

MILLY DOWLER'S mother did not sleep for three nights after she learned that a private detective working for the News of the World hacked her daughter's phone, the Leveson Inquiry heard today.

Sally Dowler described her joy when she was given false hope that Milly was still alive after investigator Glenn Mulcaire deleted some of the murdered schoolgirl's voicemails.

She rang her daughter's phone repeatedly in the weeks after she vanished as she walked home in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, in March 2002, the inquiry into press standards was told.

"At first we were able to leave messages, and then her voicemail became full and then you rang and then you just got the recorded 'you are unable to leave messages at the moment'," she said.

Mrs Dowler continued calling 13-year-old Milly's number and felt elation when she finally got through to her daughter's recorded message.

She told the inquiry: "I rang her phone. It clicked through onto her voicemail, so I heard her voice and it was just like, 'She's picked up her voicemail, she's alive'.

"When we were told about the hacking, that's the first thing I thought.

"I spoke to Gemma (her other daughter) and then it sort of died down afterwards because you're thinking, 'Is that the only reason it could have happened?', or what have you.

"But like I told my friends, 'She's picked up her voicemail, she's picked up her voicemail'."

Mrs Dowler said the credit on Milly's mobile phone was very low so police put more money on it.

But she could not remember how detectives reacted when she told them that her daughter appeared to have accessed her voicemails.

Mrs Dowler described the moment, just before the trial of a man accused of Milly's murder, when police told her and her husband Bob that Mulcaire hacked their daughter's phone.

She said: "We got a call from our FLO (police family liaison officer) to say that the Met Police wanted to see us and to tell us vaguely what it was about.

"As soon as I was told it was about phone hacking, literally I didn't sleep for about three nights because you replay everything in your mind and just think, 'Oh, that makes sense now, that makes sense'."

Giving another example of press intrusion, Mrs Dowler described how she and her husband were photographed on a private walk to retrace their daughter's steps seven weeks after Milly disappeared.

Three days later a picture of Mrs Dowler touching a "Missing" poster appeared in the News of the World.

"We quietly retraced her steps and no-one was around," she said.

"We had put out 'Missing' leaflets and I was checking to see if the right poster was up.

"That was on the Thursday, and the following Sunday that photo appeared in the News of the World. We did not see anyone - they must have taken the photo using a telephoto lens.

"How on earth did they know we were doing that walk on that day? It felt like such an intrusion into a really private grief moment."

Counsel to the inquiry Robert Jay QC suggested that the press was a "double-edged sword" for the Dowlers because they needed publicity to help the search for their daughter.

Mrs Dowler agreed, telling the hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London: "You have to remember we were really, really desperate for some information about Milly.

"So the press were in a position to be able to help us, and they did get the message out that she was missing, and lots of information came into the police headquarters.

"But on the other hand, (there is) the persistent being asked questions and being doorstepped and everything else that's associated with it - all the letters that you get requesting books, films, interviews."

Mr Dowler said the couple became nervous about leaving their house because of the constant attention from journalists.

"You really are afraid to open your front door because you are faced with a question," he said.

News Corporation chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch apologised in person to the Dowlers for the "totally unacceptable" hacking of Milly's phone, the inquiry heard.

"It was a very tense meeting... he was very sincere," Mrs Dowler said.

Prime Minister David Cameron set up the Leveson Inquiry in July in response to the revelation that the News of the World commissioned Mulcaire to hack Milly's phone.

Mr Dowler said it was "extremely important" that people understood the scale of the illegal accessing of mobile voicemails by journalists.

"The gravity of what had happened had to be investigated," he said.

"I think there is a much bigger picture, obviously, but I think that, given that we learned about those hacking revelations just before the trial for the murder of our daughter, it was extremely important that we understood and people understand exactly what went on in terms of these practices, to uncover this information from the hacking situation."

His wife said the revelation about Milly's phone being hacked had been "terribly difficult to process".

The Dowlers said they did not have any specific suggestions for the future regulation of the UK's press.

"It was more we wanted the extent of it exposed and then the inquiry could make the decision," Mrs Dowler said.

He told them: "I am very conscious that it is a strain. I can only sympathise with both of you for the appalling losses that you have suffered and for the traumas that you have undergone over many years."

Mulcaire was jailed along with the News of the World's former royal editor, Clive Goodman, in January 2007 after they admitted intercepting voicemail messages left on phones belonging to royal aides.